According to the budget books, like the ministers and ministers of state, the salaries of special assistants and advisers to the prime minister have also been increased from a total of Rs8.2m and Rs9.9m to Rs11.5m and Rs11.7m, respectively.
In case of allocations for the salaries of members of the National Assembly, it has been increased from Rs645 million to Rs669 million for the next fiscal year. The pay of the speaker and deputy speaker National Assembly and their staff has been increased from Rs11.6 million to 16.1 million for the year 2010-11. The pay of the leader of the opposition has been increased from Rs7.7m to 8.5m. The salaries of the chairmen of the standing committees of the National Assembly have been increased from Rs108m to Rs174 million.In case of senators, allocation for their salaries has been raised from Rs172m to Rs179m. The salaries of the chairman and deputy chairmen Senate and their staff has been increased from Rs26.7m to Rs28.5m.
The pays of the leaders of the house and leader of the opposition in the Upper House have been increased from Rs18.9m to Rs20m.For chairmen of standing committees in the Senate the budget allocates Rs199m from the previous Rs177m.
Apparently following the British model where the newly elected conservative government recently announced a volunteer cut in their salaries of five percent, the Gilani cabinet’s announced 10 percent is more like playing to the galleries.
Despite Dr Hafeez Shaikh’s impressive speech, the pink budget books containing details of demands and grants and appropriations for the next fiscal year, reveal more than what Shaikh said in his speech.
It is for the government to explain if the salaries of the president, prime minister, cabinet members and members of the National Assembly and Senate would remain frozen and the increase proposed in the budget books would be withdrawn or this increase is part of the overall exempted increase in the allocation for the salaries of the government servants.
For government servants, Dr Hafeez Shaikh announced ad hoc relief of 50 pc of their basic salary beside an increase in their medical allowance. A few years back during Musharraf’s regime the increase in the salaries of the MPs and the ministers was linked to the increase in the salaries of government servants, through legislation. Prior to this legislation, the governments used to give increase in the salaries of the MNAs, senators, ministers, advisers, special assistants etc separately but it used to cause embarrassment for the regime.After the said legislation, the MPs and cabinet members started getting increase in the salary equivalent to that of government servants every year but without any formal announcement of such raises in the budget speeches.
